As the Denver Post’sJohn Frankreports, Gov. John Hickenlooper is putting his money where his mouth his–or is it putting his mouth where he wants your money to be?–by proposing a small “tweak” to the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) that would allow the state to retain several hundred million dollars to fund needed projects:

On the first day of a new statewide tour, Gov. John Hickenlooper found an appropriate venue in this high mountain town for his push to revamp how the state spends money.

The Democrat stood on stage at the historic Tabor Opera House in Leadville and made a lengthy pitch for an overhaul to TABOR — the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

Hickenlooper wants to exempt the hospital provider fee from state revenue collections under TABOR because it pushes Colorado over the constitutional cap, prompting taxpayer refunds next year even as the state struggles to adequately fund priority areas.

If the fee were removed from TABOR, Colorado’s revenues would fall under the cap and the state would have $200 million more to spend on road projects and classrooms, the governor said.

To be clear, this is not the “grand bargain” that would undo the fiscal chokehold of the combination of TABOR with other constitutional spending caps and mandates to let our elected officials do their jobs as prescribed by the same state (not to mention federal) constitution. The hospital provider fee was passed in 2009 under Gov. Bill Ritter in order to qualify for additional federal matching funds for Medicaid. The program has been very successful, but that success has come with the side effect of pushing the state beyond TABOR’s dreaded revenue caps.

Despite a backlog of funding priorities and money cover them, it’s necessary to hold a statewide vote to simply allow those funds to be retained and used by the state. For citizens who don’t understand TABOR, there’s a widespread assumption that our better economy means more revenue that the state can then use to pay for all the stuff we depend on every day–roads, schools, health care.

But in Colorado, that’s just not the way it works.

“I think giving people the real facts is half the battle,” he said after the first events. “To make sure they understand that … it’s going to crowd out, over the next few years, hundreds of millions of dollars from the things all these people want from their state government.”

We’ve heard some grumbling that Hickenlooper “squandering” an opportunity for a much more comprehensive solution for a smaller-scale proposal like this might make it harder down the road for such a “big fix” to pass muster. But we honestly think that the battle to unwind TABOR’s deviously complex restrictions on raising revenue in our state is a longer-term problem than Hickenlooper or anyone else can solve by 2016. The political backing doesn’t yet exist to make a wholesale repeal viable, and the projections of looming and persistent shortfalls in the future aren’t close enough yet to be real to voters. There is more work to be done educating the public, and more harm that needs to be seen with voters’ own eyes.

In the meantime, Gov. Hickenlooper is doing what he can. The arguments that he’s making for this small-scale TABOR “fix” apply to the big questions as well–and either Hick or his successor will benefit from his touring of the state to tell this story when TABOR’s judgment day finally arrives.

As the Colorado Springs Gazette’sMegan Schraderreports, GOP Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt, facing calls for his resignation once again after stating on his Youtube video program that it would be “better” for gay Boy Scout leaders “if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea,” has a rather ironic problem:

A few weeks before Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt found himself in hot water for saying Jesus said child molesters should be drowned, he interviewed a man on his show who has been convicted twice of sexual assault on a child and called him a “new friend.”

David Dorty, who is active in El Paso County politics and is with the American Conservatives of Color, appeared on Klingenschmittt’s video ministry Pray in Jesus’ Name (PIJN) News on July 16.

Dorty, as The Gazette reported in March, has twice been convicted of sexually assaulting a child, once by a person in a position of trust. [Pols emphasis]

You can watch Rep. Klingenschmitt’s interview here: the relevant portion begins about 17:55 in. Here’s what the Gazette reported about Dwight David Dortyback in March, after he was escorted out of the Colorado Republican Party’s annual meeting on orders from then-GOP chairman Ryan Call:

A twice-convicted sex offender from El Paso County caused a stir Saturday at the Colorado Republicans’ annual organization meeting by attending the event at Douglas County High School in support of the party’s new vice chairman Derrick Wilburn.

Ryan Call, who presided over the assembly as chair of the Colorado GOP, said he requested the sergeant of arms ask the individual to leave.

“I did not think it was appropriate to have him there, certainly on school grounds, or involved in connection with our meeting,” Call said.

According to the Gazette, Dorty was convicted twice of the crime of sexual assault on a child: once in 1986 and again in 1995. The second conviction added the aggravator of being a person in a position of trust over the child in question.

Now obviously, there are a number of takeaways from this latest revelation, and some might be mitigated by the time since Dorty’s conviction, and the contention by his supporters that he has been rehabilitated. We have no interest in further denigrating a person who has paid their debt to society to the crimes they’ve committed, though we certainly understand Ryan Call’s preference that a convicted sex offender not come on to the grounds of a public high school for an official Republican Party function.

As for “Dr. Chaps,” whose wishing of death on child molesters didn’t appear to make any exceptions for, you know, rehabilitation?

“I hope that Dr. Chaps has a good supply of millstones,” said Amy Runyon-Harms, executive director of Progress Now Colorado. [Pols emphasis]

Not much we can add to that, folks. The circle of utter hypocrisy appears closed.

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► The U.S. Senate went down to the wire — today is the deadline — to come up with legislation to keep the Federal Highway Trust Fund from expiring. From the Ft. Collins Coloradoan:

A six-year highway bill passed by the Senate Thursday includes provisions that would aid the widening of Interstate 25 from Longmont to Fort Collins…

…The Senate also voted Thursday to keep the Highway Trust Fund running for another three months, preventing an abrupt halt to road and bridge construction at midnight Friday. Bennet and Gardner also voted for the temporary extension.

The House passed the three-month bill on Wednesday. President Barack Obama has promised to sign the legislation, which ensures that states continue to receive reimbursement from the federal government for highway and mass transit projects.

The six-year Senate highway bill will be used in negotiations with the House when Congress returns from its August recess. Some states have complained they can’t plan or break ground on major transportation projects because Congress keeps passing bills that fund such projects for only a few months at a time.

Perhaps Congress will come up with another strategy aside from “kick the can” when lawmakers return to Washington D.C. following the August recess.

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the Republican whip, suggested Wednesday that the Senate will take a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood on Monday.

“We’ll find out Monday night,” the Texas Republican told reporters on whether or not Republicans would be able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a procedural hurdle.

Cornyn spoke with reporters after a press conference with a handful of Senate Republicans who pressed for legislation rolled out Tuesday that would cut off federal money for Planned Parenthood and redirect the funding to other women’s health groups…

Republicans have renewed their push to defund the agency in the wake of a string of controversial, hidden-camera videos. The third, released Tuesday, appeared to show a Planned Parenthood official in Colorado negotiating with someone posing as a buyer of fetal tissue.

In an interview earlier this week with 9NEWS, GOP Sen. Cory Gardnerconfirmed that he will vote to defund Planned Parenthood:

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) will be voting for the Paul amendment.

One problem with this rush to vote to defund Planned Parenthood is the “investigations” underway into selectively edited undercover videos that have circulated in recent weeks are not complete–not that we expect political investigations by Planned Parenthood’s avowed congressional enemies to produce any outcome other than wholesale condemnation anyway. But to push forward with a vote to punish Planned Parenthood without even finishing their biased inquiries broadcasts that this response was a foregone conclusion from the beginning.

That should tell you something very important about this latest campaign against Planned Parenthood, which is hardly the first–looking back, we can recall other attempts to scandalize this organization, also in the lead-up to a general election year as we are now. Even though none of the videos released so far validate the accusation that Planned Parenthood is being illegally compensated for voluntary fetal tissue donations, they are already guilty in the eyes of social conservatives just for being Planned Parenthood. With that in mind, these videos are merely a pretext for actions that conservatives would gladly take, and have taken with or without pretext.

Reflecting yesterday on Donald Trump’s recent pledge to deport, cattle-car style, each and every one of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America–and then expedite the return of the “good ones”– the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent called on reporters to extract detailed plans from the herd of Republican presidential candidates regarding their positions on immigration.

Indeed, one hopes that the moderators of the upcoming GOP debate will see an opportunity in Trump’s cattle car musings: why not ask all the GOP candidates whether they agree with him? And if not, where dothey stand on the 11 million exactly? Remember, Mitt Romney’s big “self-deportation” moment came at a GOP primary debate…

The point is that eventually, we’ll need to hear from all the GOP candidates as to what they would do about the 11 million — beyond vaguely supporting legal status, but only after some future point at which we’ve attained a Platonic ideal of border security. Trump may have just made it more likely that this moment will come sooner, rather than later. One can hope, anyway.

It’s a good idea and has direct application here in Colorado, where Republicans, like Rep. Mike Coffman, continue to slide by journalists with vague and shifting statements about immigration.

Details, details. I wouldn’t want to go there either, if I were Coffman–because he’d get bitten by both progressive and conservative sharks. But that’s not a problem for journalists who should be asking him the questions.

We’ll be taking our server down a bit later this evening to complete another major round of upgrades–maybe, just maybe, the definitive upgrade to our always-overtaxed server capacity that everyone has been looking for. Or, maybe it’s just the next step in the endless arms race against spammers and hackers, while keeping the site functional for the occasional actual reader (that’s you). Either way, it must be done, and we’ll do our best to make it as brief an outage as possible.

A press release from Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina today announces her new “leadership committee” for a state she calls Colorado:

Republican leaders and activists in Colorado have endorsed Carly Fiorina for President of the United States. From business leaders to elected officials, Carly Fiorina is proving that her conservative outsider message is resonating with Republicans across Colorado. These leaders are part of a growing group of prominent citizens comprising a Colorado leadership committee.

Vic Stabio, CEO of Hallador Energy, is joining State House Minority Whip Perry Buck and Camp Bow Wow CEO Heidi Ganahl as a Colorado Co-Chair supporting Carly Fiorina in her candidacy for President of the United States.

We wouldn’t consider her a goodwill ambassador, but at least we’ve heard of Rep. Perry Buck of Windsor–though not exactly a household name. Other members of Fiorina’s “leadership committee” announced today include Tony Gagliardi of the National Federation of Independent Business and Centennial councilwoman Stephanie Piko. Again, we’re not talking A-Listers.

Of course, maybe the reason we don’t recognize many members of Fiorina’s Colorado team is that we’re not actually talking about Colorado?

“Carly’s outsider perspective to Washington politics is resonating in the Boulder State,” said Tom Szold, National Political Director. [Pols emphasis]

Folks, where the hell is the “Boulder State?” Because as any member of Fiorina’s Colorado leadership committee could surely have told the front office, Colorado is known as the Centennial State. We do recall political campaigns in the past where Republicans have tried to portray Colorado as ruled by the liberal stronghold city of Boulder–think Dick Wadhams and “BoulderliberalMarkUdall”–but it’s just not reality. And if it were, we’re pretty sure Republicans would not bother campaigning for President there.

It could be worse–we suppose Fiorina could have subbed Denali for Pikes Peak on her website. But between Fiorina’s underwhelming list of local endorsers and a political director who can’t even get the state’s nickname right, we’re thinking she’s not going to factor much in our Republican primary.

Colorado’s most infamous far-right Republican legislator, Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, is at it again.

In a new video posted by Rep. Klingenschmitt this past week, Klingenschmitt claims that allowing gay scoutmasters to serve in the Boy Scouts of America “will lead to sexual abuse” and goes on to quote a Bible verse that says for those who cause “little ones to sin,” “it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Klingenschmitt then says it would be “better” for “child molesters” like the scoutmasters he previously described to be drowned.

After Rep. Klingenschmitt claimed that a member of Congress from our state wants to “behead Christians,” and that the tragic attack on a pregnant woman in Longmont last March was “the curse of God,” we called for him to resign. Instead, House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso restored Klingenschmitt to his committee assignments as soon as the media stopped paying attention, and swept the matter under the rug. That was a huge mistake, and today Republicans are paying the price as Klingenschmitt once again brings shame upon the entire state of Colorado.

The Denver Post’sElizabeth Hernandezreports–as you’ve probably seen in the news by now, the anti-abortion gotchameisters at the so-called “Center for Medical Progress” paid a visit to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains as well–and a video this week adds to their drumbeat releases of highly edited videos attacking the organization’s alleged tissue donation practices:

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains is “certain” it has done nothing illegal and that the accusations made against it by an anti-abortion group that posted an undercover, edited video of a PPRM physician seemingly talking about the sale of fetal parts is false.

The video — the third released by the Center for Medical Progress in recent days — shows local Planned Parenthood Dr. Savita Ginde looking at specimens with an alleged fetal tissue buyer.

Fetal tissue cannot be sold for profit but can be donated for research with permission of a donor, and providers can be reimbursed for the cost of the procedure.

Planned Parenthood says it obeys the law. But since the release of the first furtively recorded video, Republicans in Congress have been pressing to bar federal aid to the group.

Now several weeks into a series of undercover videos released by anti-abortion activists in the hope of scandalizing what amounts to routine and life-saving medical research, two things are increasingly undeniable: that these videos rely on emotional manipulation to shock viewers out of thinking rationally, and that they are part of a longstanding campaign by anti-abortion activists and allied Republican lawmakers to discredit and ultimately defund Planned Parenthood–despite the organization’s major contribution to public health in a variety of fields. The Colorado Independent’sNat Steinprovides important context for locals:

This 501(c)3 nonprofit was founded in 2013 by David Daleiden, a famous provocateur in the anti-abortion movement. Also listed as a CMP board member on the group’s registration filing in the state of California is Troy Newman — president of Operation Rescue, which ran a decades-long harassment campaign against Dr. George Tiller in Kansas that only ended after Tiller was murdered in a church in 2009…

Here in Denver, it’s worth noting that PPRM, like most Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country, doesn’t currently have a fetal-tissue-donation program. From the highly edited video, the context of their conversation about tissue sales is unclear, but PPRM President and CEO Vicki Cowart issued a statement explaining that representatives from CMP’s fake company Biomax had approached the clinic about launching a program. [Pols emphasis]

Under pressure from hard-right Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs, Colorado State University has announced they will suspend any further acquisition of fetal tissue until Congress completes an “investigation” sparked by the spread of these videos. CSU presently has a single research project that has used fetal tissue samples, working on a treatment for HIV/AIDS. CSU says they did not obtain complete fetal organs, just small tissue samples, and CSU insists they were all procured in accordance with the law.

It’s important to note that, other than the unpleasant subject matter being discussed, none of these videos show anything that appears illegal as the law pertains to voluntary fetal tissue donations. Planned Parenthood doctors covertly filmed repeatedly state that they are following the law, and that it’s “not about the money.” In the end, it is one’s pre-existing views on abortion that principally determine the reaction to these videos. And that means they are most useful for agitating people who already oppose abortion.

For the rest of us, it’s the same old anti-choice crap. It takes just a moment of critical thinking to realize that medical research is in fact a good thing, and doctors talking about their work in terms non-doctors find a bit macabre is hardly a new phenomenon. Once you realize that, these videos are no more worthy of consideration than those lurid rolling billboard trucks covered with bloody fetuses and pocket change. Not to mention the growing possibility that laws were broken filming them.

In the end, it’s (pardon the expression) red meat for the conservative base, and little more. With one possible caveat: to the extent that these videos send social conservatives into yet another public freakout over what most Americans consider a settled law, this could well backfire politically–once again defining Republicans as the “war on women” party just ahead of a major election.

One of the things that we frequently cover as the political water cooler blog for Colorado are the cutesey games that opposing political campaigns often play against one another online. Over the years and often the result of tips from readers, we’ve broken the stories of hilarious errors on candidate websites, candidate photo shoots gone horribly wrong, and the occasional outright spoofing of an opponent’s site.

The main “independent” group opposing the recall of conservative members of the Jefferson County school board is a group known as Jeffco Students First. Jeffco Students First recently pulled off a trick at the expense of the pro-recall group Support Jeffco Kids, who had registered their website’s domain name supportjeffcokids.org, but had neglected to also register supportjeffcokids.COM–the site people are most likely to type in from memory. Jeffco Students First snapped up the .com domain name and repointed it at their own website–which will both confuse voters looking for more information and hurt the real Support Jeffco Kids’ Google ranking.

But this apparently wasn’t the only example of Jeffco Students First playing domain name games. Several other seemingly pro-recall domain names were bought up, apparently some time ago: including recallwitt.org, recallnewkirk.org, and recallwilliams.org. These three domain names were all registered to the same domain registrar, Omnis Network. Recallwitt.org and recallwilliams.org were registered at 10:21PM on June 26 2014, recallnewkirk.org at 10:27PM on June 26 2014. As you can see, someone was thinking ahead.

But here’s the newsworthy part: the latter two are NOT registered in the name of Jeffco Students First. They are registered in the personal name of Jeffco board member John Newkirk. Here are the relevant portions of the identifying WHOIS records for these three domains: